Bad guys thrived in Boston

The James "Whitey" Bulger criminal trial in a Boston federal court ended with his conviction Monday on 31 of 32 counts, including 11 killings.

Law enforcement officials were quick to parade before the cameras to hail the prosecution, the verdict and the people who made it happen.

But make no mistake, one of the few honorable parts of this trial was the endurance of the families directly impacted by the 20 years of terror Mr. Bulger and his Winter Hill Gang rained down on Boston residents, and hopefully these families will find some solace in Mr. Bulger's convictions.

The law enforcement officials who doggedly went after the gang, despite the cover Mr. Bulger received from corrupt state and federal officials, also deserve an honorable mention.

But unfortunately, a good argument could be made that this case weakened rather than strengthened our criminal justice system. A good case could be made that retribution and cover-up, rather than truth and justice, were the ultimate winners here.

For starters, the prosecution had no desire to explore governmental misconduct in this case, and with the ruling of the presiding judge blocking the defense from arguing that Mr. Bulger was given free reign by the government to run his racketeering enterprise.

Secondly, the star prosecution witnesses and former Bulger partners in crime — Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, John Martorano and Kevin Weeks — did not testify to help the search for justice or out of respect for the law. They did it because they received sweetheart deals from the prosecution and apparently because Bulger was a government informant, otherwise called a rat, which was something no self-respecting gangster would abide and abet.

"A Judas is a rat, an informant. Just a no-good guy," was how Martorano, who admitted after his arrest in 1995 to committing 20 murders, explained turning against his former boss. "It's the opposite of the way I want to live."

Of course, trading in a potential death penalty for the 14 years he was given for agreeing to testify against Mr. Bulger and Mr. Flemmi is not a bad way to live either. It also didn't hurt that while he was in prison, "the Drug Enforcement Administration deposited $6,000 into his commissary account, and that after prison, the federal government gave him $20,000 in 'start-up money,' " according to published reports.

Mr. Flemmi, who pleaded guilty in 2003 to 10 murders, was spared the death penalty by agreeing to testify against Mr. Bulger. Mr. Weeks served only five years after pleading to assisting Mr. Bulger in five killings.

"We thought we were going to expose a little bit of government corruption; little did we think the government would expose more corruption than we ever could have," Henry Brennan, Bulger's defense lawyer said, noting the deals the government made with its witnesses.

J.W. Carney, Brennan's co-counsel, added that it "was important to (Bulger) that government corruption be exposed, and it was important to him that people see firsthand the deals the government was able to make with certain people."

The problem is that most Americans did not see the trial because of a federal policy that prohibits the broadcasting of criminal cases.

And had most Americans been able to see the trial, they would, according to Mr. Carney, "have seen things that would educate them about the federal government that would amaze them, shock them, appall them and just make them realize there has to be changes."

Those are troubling remarks that cannot be soothed by the conviction of James "Whitey" Bulger.